Web 2.0 - Online Communities and The Sims

Interesting, Josh. The host's response (Pat Morrison?) to your comments was telling. She clearly had no idea what The Sims franchise is. I felt that the whole tone of the debate came across as a bourgeois intellectualised probing into a phenomenon that is, at best, poorly understood on the cerebral level even by those involved in it. Given that understanding necessarily lags behind development in the context of social phenomena this is not surprising. Society is not made by those who think about it, but by the people who are living in it and just "doing".

MySpace, in my opinionated view, is little more than a sorting house for people in search of a societal niche. The danger is that niches are being creating within MySpace and that, in consequence, MySpace is in danger of becoming a monolithic monopoly. If that thought doesn't scare then maybe this will. The next stage in the monopoly process is to stratify the service making the free services all but unusable and the paid for services more expensive. Might that happen? I doubt it but it is food for thought. MySpace is merely msn with more buzzers and bells ... I honestly don't see the fuss ... it's really only of interest to the owners who are surely blessed people who will never want for a dollar ever again

Josh I thought your comments were a sensible dash of common sense. They shone out within a flash flood of what mostly washed over me as yada yada yada blah blah blah. I kept hearing stuff that sounded like buzz-phrases and keywords and bullscat ... luckily my ears are filled with bollocks-proof wax

I suggest you write to Ms Morrison and ask for slot on her show to debate TS2 as a social phenomenon. That I would like to hear.

 

The online community for The Sims is very strong, and the game has brought together so many people from all parts of the globe. The fansites have been crucial to the success of The Sims, and the custom content created by simmers has been of a very high quality - usually superior to the content created by Maxis.

The vast number of fans involved in The Sims community have been able to make friends with people in all sorts of ways. Some of us keep in touch via emails, some of us use IMs, some of us post to forums and some of us meet in real life. The Sims game is always being developed through EPs and this keeps our common interest alive, year in year out. Ok, so I have like over 150 people on my IM lists, but only really keep in touch with about 30 or so on a day to day/ week to week basis, some of whom are very close friends. The friendship goes beyond the game too - real people with real lives, sharing those lives with each other and generally being there for each other, in good times, bad times, funny times and obligatory silliness.

Josh, I thought your comments on the radio show were very well put, and how you managed not to laugh when she asked what the Sims was, I will never know lol. Who hasn't heard of The Sims? I think that a lot of people underestimate the sense of community, in an online capacity - including those who are and who are not aware of The Sims. When Maxis closed its chatroom in September 2003, the community was distraught because we felt a sense of belonging and a real warmth there. It was a great place to hang out and a place where many solid friendships (and in my case, relationship) were formed. It's where I first met Josh, where I first met many close friends - some of whom I have met in real life. Last summer we went to a simfriend's high school graduation, and whilst there we met with another mutual friend - SMFran. I met a wonderful person in that chatroom and through MSN we became closer and now we are living together, engaged to be married. In the last couple of years we have met Macbraveheart twice, and we are planning to meet up with some more friends in the UK that we have become closer to through The Sims. We all share a common interest, The Sims, and have shared our lives, good times and bad, as real life friends would. The Sims community means that we can always meet new people, and make new friends. And of course we have all the visual capabilities to express ourselves, our emotions etc through emoticons and photobuckets and blog pages etc, to really put a face behind the name.

Internet safety is a prime concern, obviously, so I do want to point out that I wouldn't have met anyone that I hadn't known for a long time, and in great depth too. However, I think it's awesome that a game can bring so many people together, and not just one particular demographic, but all ages. I know simmers who are below 10 yrs of age (ie my nephews) right through to simmers in their 60s. Mostly, my online friends are in their 20s, 30s and early 40s. We spend a lot of time chatting about off topic stuff, ie real life LOL.

Now i'm waffling

Great interview Josh. Thanks for sharing the link.

 

I for one know that my friendships in the Sims Community mean as much if not more than my real-life assosiations. I wish very much that I could be more active, contribute more to the community, etc. I almost feel like a leech: I can't create custom content, I'm not a hacker, I just download everyone's stuff, ask lots of questions, read people's conversations and jump in when I have a chance, like today. I'm not sure how healthy that is, being that all my friends are online, and I don't go out much except to work. LOL And then at work, I talk about y'all and my Sims.

My Space is really becoming controversial because of the sexual predators and other violent low-lifes that seem to frequent it. I'm sure that 90% of the My Space users are nice, upstanding folks. I haven't visisted the site. I do know that a few of our employees were terminated for starting some sort of "We Hate Our Workplace" site and posting to it while at work on company computers. LOL Not the most mature employees out there.

Great work Josh, for having the courage to call in, and for being such an upstanding embasador of all of us Crazed Sims Addicts in the Community.

 

I think that the difference with The Sims community and sites like MySpace and YouTube is that we in the Sims community all share a love of the game - The Sims/The Sims 2, and have gotten to know each other primarily through this common interest. Anyone can go onto MySpace and YouTube and see/start talking to practically anyone without really knowing anything about them.

My first visit to MySpace was nasty - I saw things that simply shouldn't be on the internet, and what worried me was that kids could see that stuff too. I also saw teenagers posting personal details such as name/hometown/high school name etc. without regard or consideration for the fact that *anyone* could read that information. On YouTube, anyone can start communication with another user, with the only commonality being that the users have created a YouTube username. Kinda like talking to strangers in a crowded street.

I believe that the Sims community is more than that - we all bring our own experiences of the game to the fansites and to the main Sims BBSes. Some of us are more involved than others, but we all feel we have a place in the community. We became introduced to each other via the shared love for the game, and from there we have gone to IMs and emails and Skyping and all the rest, through to meeting in person. Many of us have known each other for years, and have become very close.